Schöngarth said, “And it will only lead to one place.” She paused. “We’re about to go to war with Russia.”
“It certainly appears that way.”
She said, “The Russians have five hundred Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad. These missiles have nuclear warhead capability, although we don’t know if they are armed with nuclear devices. The official range of the Iskander is four hundred kilometers, which places it below the five-hundred-kilometer threshold for the Intermediate Nuclear Forces treaty. But most experts agree the Iskander can reach targets at seven hundred kilometers, with an accuracy of five meters. One decision by Valeri Volodin, and the German parliament can go up in smoke.”
“I know,” Ryan said. “And right now there is a Russian nuclear missile submarine somewhere off the coast of the U.S. Its presence there renders our ballistic missile defense much less likely to be able to track and destroy an incoming Bulava rocket. It’s there because Volodin wanted the United States in the same boat as Europe when he made his deal for a territorial summit.”
The German president said, “Then you are in a similar situation as we are, Mr. President.”
“Similar, but not the same. There is no threat of conventional attack against us like there is here, I recognize this. But I will put every single troop we have in Europe into Lithuania to stop this madman.”
Just then, Arnie Van Damm apologized to the German president and leaned in to Ryan’s ear. “The French president is on the phone. You need to take it.”
Ryan excused himself and stepped over to a table with a phone already off the cradle. “Hello, Henri’.”
The French president said, “Hello, Jack. I wanted to tell you personally. We will stand in the way of the deployment of NATO forces into Lithuania.”
Ryan wasn’t surprised, but he felt defeated. He’d spent most of a week on this goal, and it had failed.
The Frenchman said, “The Baltic States are untenable as NATO nations. When Russia was in NATO, well, yes, it made perfect sense. But with Russia as a threat, and small unprotected nations, all of which more naturally fall under the influence of Russia than they do under Western ideals… well… I am only concerned about Poland. We will make a counterproposal that NATO’s readiness in Poland be upgraded. This will render an attack there less likely.”
Ryan said, “And an attack in Lithuania more likely. We will be telling Volodin the Baltic is his as long as he doesn’t try for Poland.”
The French president said, “This is my decision. I have the backing of several other member states.”
I’m sure you do, Ryan thought. He thanked the president for his call and said good-bye; there was nothing else he could do now.
He stepped back over to the German president, told her the news. In minutes he and his entourage were on their way back to his suite.
They did not speak during the walk, because the halls and elevators had not been declared clean by counterintelligence technicians. But the moment they got back in Ryan’s suite, Adler asked, “What are you going to do now?”
Ryan said, “I’m going to go to Sweden. I want to appeal to non-NATO states to get some support for our actions. Show them we care about their concerns.”
Scott Adler broke in here. “You thought that was a tough crowd. Sweden has all but shut down their military. They aren’t going to want to do anything to upset the apple cart any more than Volodin is already doing. The fact Russia knocked their plane out of the sky has them pissed off, but other than a small but decent air force, they aren’t much of a power anymore.”
“How bad is it?” he asked.
“Sweden has a good air force, but that’s it. Our view of Sweden’s current defense condition is not optimistic.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning it is our belief that if Sweden decided to begin an aggressive program to build up its military, then in five years it would have the capability to defend itself in place… for one week.”
Ryan said, “So Russia could steam west across the Baltic from Kaliningrad, or south from the North Sea, and they could claim Sweden as their own.”
“At will, Mr. President.”
President Jack Ryan rubbed his eyes under his glasses, pressing hard, as if to stanch the overwhelming frustration. “We’ll go to them and ask for overflight rights. Air base access. Supply support for our Navy in the Baltic. We’ll ask for their air force to support our mission in Lithuania. If we pull the trigger and deploy, then we’ll need all the help we can get.”
“That’s not much, Mr. President.”
“Well, it’s all they have. I’d like to get Sweden into NATO down the road. If they help us now, I think both Sweden and the rest of NATO could see their way forward to allowing this to happen.”
59
Clark dreamt of the pain before he woke to feel it. In his dream he had been at home in bed; Sandy might have been next to him but he could not turn to look. A truck had driven into his bedroom, slowly and without seeming to care, and it had driven onto his bed, pinning him down. His legs were crossed, one on top of the other, so they hurt the worst, but his back was twisted by the big tires, and the heat from the exhaust pipe burned the side of his head, just behind his right ear.
This was an awful dream, to be sure, but he preferred it to how he felt when he woke. His mind took in the feeling, his body alive with the pain, and his arms and legs were just as slow to operate as they had been when he’d been dreaming.
He was looking up through the companionway, so he saw a bit of the faint glow from a mostly moonless night, but other than that he was still shrouded in darkness.
He had no idea how long he’d been lying here, and he also had no idea how badly he’d been hurt, but the worst of it was the side of his head behind his right ear, so he forced his right hand up to touch it, praying the swelling would be on the outside of his skull, and not inside, where he ran the real risk of death, even hours after the injury occurred.
He touched his fingers to the center of the pain and he did, indeed, feel a massive knot there, which would have been good news, but Clark wasn’t feeling any better about it, because as he’d moved his hand to his head he’d managed to splash himself in the face with seawater.
If he hadn’t just suffered a concussion, if he hadn’t just woken up from an unconscious state brought on by a violent blow to the head, then Clark would have recognized much more quickly that he was lying in pain in the bowels of a sinking boat. As it happened, it took him several seconds to work this out; only the taste of the water on his lips and the sense his ears were now filling with the wetness and blocking out the noises around him impressed on him how bad his situation had become.
Now the pain in his head and his back and his legs was all of minor importance. No matter how bad he hurt, no matter what condition he found himself in when he began to move, he had only one objective.
John Clark was a Navy man, true, but he found himself under no obligation whatsoever to go down with his ship.
His legs were probably just bruised; his right shin and his left knee had caught the stairs in the companionway. Clark didn’t need a slow-mo replay of the event to know this. His back was killing him, it had seized in spasm, and he didn’t know how the hell he was going to swim when one of the largest chains of muscles in his body refused to cooperate with the orders sent from his brain, but that was a problem he’d have to sort out in a minute or two. For now it was about getting out of the saloon, then out of the cockpit, and finally off the deck before this fifty-two-foot Irwin rolled over and took him down with it.